Bushfire rescue

IT WAS a different kind of convoy. Two deer, two koalas, lizards and other animals. All scampering for their life alongside a dirt road in Kinglake West surrounded by bush.

They had come from among the trees to join another convoy, a motorised one that was also fleeing the Black Saturday firestorm. Out front was a horse running alongside the first car. Its owner sat in the passenger seat and leant out the window to hang on to the halter around the horse's neck.

Second in line was a vehicle towing a horse float containing two horses. It was followed by a third vehicle with a policeman who had just jumped from a winch hanging below a police helicopter.

Kinglake West resident Juliet Moore was driving the first car. She was in it because she didn't want to be winched to safety by the helicopter, and leave her friends and dog Poncho in danger. The police helicopter had also become unstable because of low oxygen levels in the air and had to fly away after the aborted rescue attempt.

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Yesterday, Ms Moore recounted to the Bushfires Royal Commission the peculiar convoy. ''When we came out the other side of the flames there was a number of other animals. A couple of deer jumped the fences and there were a couple of koalas and some kangaroos and a couple of lizards. They were all running with us, at the same speed as us next to the car.

''The deer were pretty quick and they took off, but it was sort of like we were all there together for a little while,'' she said.

In a written statement to the commission Ms Moore said the animals had ''appeared from nowhere … There was a horse and deer and the deer looked at the horse and the horse looked at the deer … It was kind of surreal,'' she said.

Minutes earlier it was Poncho who was the focus of attention. Attached to the winch below the helicopter Ms Moore held Poncho tightly in her arms. But when the helicopter lifted the pair off the ground Poncho became skittish and jumped. Ms Moore decided to follow her dog's lead and asked to be released from the winch.

Sergeant David Key, who had arrived by helicopter, said everybody had to leave the property and drive to safety. They eventually reached the golf course, where Sergeant Key told them to wait. After sleeping on the front lawn of her friend's Whittlesea house overnight, Ms Moore returned home the next morning to find her house intact.

An architect, she was dismissive when asked about the tougher bushfire building rules that have been introduced since the fires. ''Every single house was annihilated and it didn't matter what it was made out of …

''I use Brian Naylor's house as an example: his was a brick house with a concrete slab and even his concrete slab had turned to dust in the heat of the fire,'' she said.

In other evidence yesterday, Michael Harding from the Housing Industry Association said testing standards need to be developed for bushfire bunkers. Tests to assess things like load capacity and heat resistance would save lives, he said.